Ryan Briscoe

Ryan Briscoe (born September 24, 1981 in Sydney) is an Australian auto racing driver who has raced open wheel and sports cars in Europe and America.

Career biography

Early career

Like many auto racing drivers, he started his career in karting, first racing in 1993. After winning Australian, North American and Italian championships, he moved to Formula Renault in 2000. He won the Italian Championship in 2001 (winning 5 races) and finished 4th running a limited schedule in the Eurocup (with 2 wins in 6 races). In 2002, he became test driver for the Toyota Formula One constructor. He started that year racing in the Formula 3000 series, but struggled and left his ride after 7 races. He finished the year in the German Formula 3 series, taking 3 podiums in the last 6 rounds. He won the Formula Three Euroseries in 2003 (winning 8 races in the process). He became the Toyota F1 team's 'third' driver (ie, drove the team's test car on Fridays at Grands Prix) for the last third of the 2004 season, after previous third driver Ricardo Zonta was called up to replace Cristiano Da Matta.

2005

There were rumors that Briscoe was set to race for the Jordan Grand Prix F1 team in 2005, due to the team's acquisition of Toyota power. Instead, Briscoe raced for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in the Indy Racing League, including a 10th place finish in the Indianapolis 500. He also made his Rolex Grand-Am debute with Ganassi at the 24 Hours of Daytona. He took pole position at Sears Point, but struggled on the ovals and was involved in several crashes.

On September 11, 2005 he was involved in an enormous crash at Chicagoland Speedway, breaking both clavicles among other injuries. He was released from the hospital on September 19 and following some initial treatment in the USA, moved to the specialist Formula Medicine facility in Viareggio, Italy, for the bulk of his rehabilitation. It took 8 weeks for Briscoe to recover from the injuries he sustained in the crash. His official web site announced his return to the USA on November 14, 2005. Following the incident Ryan was nicknamed "Briscoe Inferno".

2006

Briscoe was dropped by Ganassi for 2006, replaced by 2005 IRL champion Dan Wheldon. During the winter, he tested with fellow Australian and Champ Car owner Kevin Kalkhoven's PKV Racing team. Briscoe also tested for the Mi Jack Conquest team. Briscoe competed in the 2006 24 Hours of Daytona with 2005 Champions Wayne Taylor, Max Angelelli and Emmanuel Collard, but the team withdrew due to accident damage before Briscoe's turn to drive.

In 2006, Briscoe was announced as an endurance driver for Holden Racing Team, set to partner Jim Richards at the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000. He also drove in the A1 Grand Prix race at Laguna Seca in the USA for A1 Team Australia, scoring three points. At the Indy 500 he was a surprise late driver of the #48 car for A J Foyt Racing - the deal was so late he was still having his seat fitting with less than half an hour of Bump Day qualifying left, and he never got out on the track to attempt a qualifying run. He returned to the IRL the following week and drove the #5 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara to a third place finish at Watkins Glen International, a road course. He returned to the Dreyer & Reinbold team on a three race deal for the short speedways in the second half of the season, but recorded DNF's in 2 of his 3 races with the team. He then was tabbed to replace the injured Cristiano da Matta in the final two races of the Champ Car season for the RuSPORT team, including his home country's race at Surfers Paradise.

2007

Briscoe signed a deal to drive for Penske Racing's Porsche LMP2 car in the American Le Mans Series and was named to a ride in the Indy 500 in a car owned by Stephen J. Luczo and Jay Penske with equipment leased from defending '500' champion Penske Racing.

Driving the #12 Symantec Luczo Dragon Racing machine, Briscoe qualified 7th with a four lap average speed of 224.410. In the race on May 28, 2007, he completed all 166 laps before the race was called due to a driving rain. Briscoe finished 5th amongst the 33 participants earning him $302,305 and 30 driver's points.

2008

Ryan Briscoe signed to drive for Penske's Indy Car team as a race driver for the 2008 Indy Car Series season, replacing the former driver Sam Hornish Jr., who is racing full time in Penske's NASCAR team in 2008. Briscoe knocked himself out of the Indianapolis 500 along with Danica Patrick when Briscoe came out of the pits and ran into Patrick tearing up her suspension and tearing the front end of Briscoe's car.

Briscoe earned his first career win at Milwaukee the week after Indy. Holding off Scott Dixon and avoiding a late crash involving Marco Andretti, Ed Carpenter, and Vitor Meira. He followed up his first career win with a victory, shortly after the halfway point of the season, at the Honda 200 on the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

Motorsports Career Results

Junior Series

(Races in bold indicate pole position)

Series	Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Team	Final Pos	Points
F3000	2002	Nordic Racing	BRA 12	SAN 13	SPA 12	AUT 17	MON Ret	EUR Ret	GBR 12	FRA	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	Nordic Racing	16th	0
German F3	2002	Prema	HOK	SAC	NOR	LAU 11	HOK Ret	NUR Ret	A1R 5	ZAN 3	HOK 3				Prema	13th	16
			HOK	SAC	NOR	LAU 15	HOK 7	NUR 11	A1R Ret	ZAN 3	HOK 5
Euro F3	2003	Prema	HOK 1	ADR 5	PAU 1	NOR 4	BUG 3	NUR Ret	A1R 1	ZAN 17	HOK 17	MAG 14			Prema	1st	110
			HOK 1	ADR 1	PAU 2	NOR Ret	BUG Ret	NUR 7	A1R 1	ZAN 1	HOK 1	MAG 14

International Open Wheel Racing

(F1 driver results legend 2)

Series	Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	Team	Final Pos	Points
Formula 1	2004	Toyota	AUS	MAL	BHR	SMR	ESP	MON	EUR	CAN	USA	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN TD	BEL TD	ITA TD	CHN TD	JPN *	BRA TD	Toyota	-	-
A1GP	2005/06	AUS	BRH	LAU	EST	ECR	SEP	DUB	DUR	SEN	MON	LAG 10	SHA 9								AUS	13th	51
			BRH	LAU	EST	ECR	SEP	DUB	DUR	SEN	MON	LAG 8	SHA 3
A1GP	2006/07	AUS	ZAN 13	BRN	BEI	SEP 12	SEN 6	TAU	ECR	DUR	MEX	SHA	BRH								AUS	13th	25
			ZAN 3	BRN	BEI	SEP 17	SEN 6	TAU	ECR	DUR	MEX	SHA	GBR

* Was entered as Third Driver, but did not run due to bad weather.

American Open Wheel Racing

(American Open Wheel driver results legend) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Series	Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Team	Final Pos	Points
IndyCar	2005	Ganassi	HMS Ret	PHX Ret	STP Ret	JPN 12	INDY 10	TXS 12	RIR Ret	KAN Ret	NSH 8	MIL DNS	MIS 10	KTY 13	PPIR Ret	SNM Ret	CHI Ret	WGL INJ	CAL INJ			Ganassi	19th	232
IndyCar	2006	Foyt Enterprises	HMS	STP	JPN	INDY DNQ	WGI 3	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH 9	MIL Ret	MIC	KTY	SNM Ret	CHI						Dreyer & Reinbold	21st	83
CCWS	2006	RuSPORT	LBH	HOU	MTY	MIL	POR	CLE	TOR	EDM	SJO	DEN	MTL	ROA	SRF 11	MXC 14						RuSPORT	21st	17
IndyCar	2007	Luczo-Dragon	HMS	STP	MOT	KAN	INDY 5	MIL	TXS	IOW	RIR	WGL	NSH	MDO	MIS	KTY	SNM	DET	CHI			Luczo-Dragon	24th	30
IndyCar	2008	Penske	HMS Ret	STP Ret	MOT1 9	LBH1 DNP	KAN 7	INDY Ret	MIL 1	TXS 3	IOW 7	RIR Ret	WGL 12	NSH Ret	MDO 1	EDM 6	KTY 7	SNM 2	DET 9	CHI 3	SRF2	Penske	5th	447

* 2008 season in progress

¹ Run on same day

² Non-points-paying, exhibition race

Touring/Sports Car Racing

(Races in bold indicate pole position)

Series	Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	Team	Final Pos	Points
V8 Supercars	2006	HRT	ADL	PUK	BRG	WIN	HDV	QLR	ORP	SAN Ret	BAT Ret	SUR	SYM	BAH	PHI	HRT	-	0
ALMS P2	2007	Penske	SEB 8	STP 1	LGB 2	HOU 3	MMP 1*	LMR 1*	MDO 2	ROA 2	MOS 2	DET 7	ATL 5	LAG 2		Penske	T-3rd	186

* Overall victory as well as class victory.

Overall Stats

Series	Seasons	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Point Finishes (Non-podium)	Teams	Total Points	Championships	Best Finish (Championship)
F3000	1	7	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	16th (2002)
German F3	1	12	0	0	3	3	1	16	0	13th (2002)
Euro F3	1	20	4	8	2	3	1	110	1	1st (2003)
Formula 1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	- (2004)
IndyCar Series	3	38	3	2	4	15	4	616	0	5th (2008)
A1GP	2	10	0	0	2	5	1	51	0	13th (2005/06)
CCWS	1	2	0	0	0	2	1	17	0	21st (2006)
V8 Supercars	1	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	- (2006)
ALMS P2	1	12	2	3	6	3	1	186	0	T-3rd (2007)

Complete to July 12, 2008.

Indy 500 results

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish
2005	Panoz	Toyota	24th	10th
2006	Dallara	Honda	Failed To Qualify
2007	Dallara	Honda	7th	5th
2008	Dallara	Honda	3rd	23rd

Trivia

• In addition to his native English, Briscoe speaks Italian and French.
• Is good friends with Champ Car driver Robert Doornbos. While recovering from his crash at Chicagoland Speedway in 2005, Briscoe had surgery in Italy and stayed at Doornbos' house while he was away racing with Minardi.
• Attended Trinity Grammar School in Summer Hill, Sydney, Australia.

References

External links

• Ryan Briscoe's official website
• Photograph of Ryan's huge crash in 2005
• Photo sequence of infernal 2005 Chicagoland crash (from Paddocktalk).